It's a little reductionist to ignore the context of that spending. U.S. foreign policy since WW2 has always been forward deployment to keep conflict off our soil.
We subsidize the defense of all of our allies, and with that came a lot of geopolitical leverage in terms of a world order. The middle east aside, there hasn't been large-scale conventional warfare between super powers since. And that's because of a global presence.
Also, the costs are reflective of the fact that we can't exactly outsource a military. We're paying U.S. prices, if that makes sense. Can't exactly buy tech and arms from China or Russia. Can't sell yours either unless you want it reverse engineered.
I don't agree with the practice in its entirety because there definitely are players who stand to benefit from that status quo, but it's easy to criticize in a time of relative peace.
If we didn't spend that money at this point in time, it would leave a massive power vacuum and that seems a little scary and unstable, tbh.
Present it however you want, imperialism is still imperislizm. ---
"Never seen a group of people more obsessed with a man's naked, hairy ass than the men at Current Events." -SBAllen 2018 We live in a society